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Acute esophageal necrosis

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Abstract

Acute esophageal necrosis (AEN) or “black esophagus” is a rare condition presented by patients with critical state of health and characterized by a darkened esophagus, usually the distal third, in upper digestive endoscopy. The main clinical manifestation is upper gastrointestinal bleeding and there may be abdominal pain, dysphagia, nausea, vomiting, fever and syncope associated. The diagnosis depends on clinical suspicion and performing endoscopy, the biopsy not being required. In this article we present a case of a patient who had lots of comorbidities and developed AEN during a post-operative period, and discuss the importance of AEN in an increasingly ageing population.

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Correspondence to Beatriz Deoti e Silva Rodrigues or Igor Guedes Nogueira Reis.

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Conflict of Interest:

Beatriz Deoti Silva Rodrigues, Raniere dos Santos, Magda Maria Profeta da Luz, Flávia Chaves e Silva and Igor Guedes Nogueira Reis declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures followed have been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments.

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Informed consent was not necessary, because no identifiable information concerning the patient is included in this article.

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Rodrigues, B.D.S., dos Santos, R., da Luz, M.M.P. et al. Acute esophageal necrosis. Clin J Gastroenterol 9, 341–344 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12328-016-0692-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12328-016-0692-1

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